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Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Put Pressure on Indiana Media

Through biased reporting and their unrelenting pursuit to promote Bennett, Daniels, and the corporate school reformers, the Indiana media flunkies have been selling the privatization of our schools for too long. The time is now to let local TV, radio, and newspaper reporters and editors know that we will not stand by idly. If the guilty don’t shape up, we must send them packing.

Here are a few ways to let publishers, editors, and producers know we are serious about canceling our subscriptions, changing the radio dial, and turning off the tube, encouraging others to follow.

The Boycott List:

Media Email Database

A database of Indiana newspaper contact information can be found here. Simply find the paper you want to contact and click on the (A) next to its name. This will take you to the paper’s contact form or email addresses to members of the editorial board or publishers.

You can find TV station contact information here, and a radio list at this link.

Here are a few selected to target.

1. Bloomington Herald-Times

This paper hosted a Bloomington Chamber of Commerce meeting with Tony Bennett. Both Douglas Storm and I submitted questions for editor Bob Zaltsberg to ask the superintendent. To the best of my knowledge, none of our questions made it through. Additionally, the paper published a meaningless account of the event and decided against running my editorial pointing out the cronyism in Tony Bennett’s agenda. They have published Douglas Storm’s letters and occasional guest columns, which have called out the corporate school reformers.

A primary issue of concern is a “know-nothing” editorial policy that claims, “If it isn’t going on in Bloomington or Monroe County it doesn’t get covered.” The barbarians at the gate do not come knocking and saying please and it behooves a community newspaper to make its readers aware of the impending invasion.

2. Boots’ Newspapers: The Paper of Montgomery County and the Noblesville Times

These two papers are co-owned by Indiana Republican Senator Phil Boots and must be extensively targeted. Both papers are unavailable online without a subscription, but the editor, Tim Timmons, can be contacted at The Paper of Montgomery County at ttimmons@thepaper24-7.com. At the Noblesville Times, you can email him at ttimmons@thetimes24-7.com or use their contact email, which is news@thetimes24-7.com.

3. Courier Press (Evansville)

This paper had a fluff piece concerning the Indiana Republican legislators and ALEC and often quotes from groups like School Choice Indiana.

J. Scott Enright, who is the secretary of the corporate school reform group, the Friedman Foundation, also is vice president at Emmis Communications, the mega-media outfit with radio, digital, and publishing outlets in Los Angeles, St. Louis, New York, Austin, and Bulgaria. Emmis received $118,750 last year from Friedman to “educate the public” on school vouchers. In fact, Emmis did the WhyNotIndiana? ads which appeared on-line and in newspapers across Indiana.

In Indianapolis, Emmis owns ESPN 1070 the Fan, Country 97.1 Hank-FM, WIBC 93.1 FM, Soft Rock B105.7, each with a market revenue of $75 million. Their Terre Haute stations include Hi-99 Radio and 105,5 the River., each worth revenue of $7.1 million. Emmis also operates Network Indiana, which is a state network with revenue of $1.5 million which feeds news programming to stations across Indiana. In Indiana, the company also owns the 45,000 circulating Indianapolis Monthly.

Although they have printed a few of my letters, the Indy Star has constantly cheered the corporate school reformers in this state. They often quote from sources spilling propaganda, praise Bennett in editorials, do next to no research in writing their reports, and are in bed with the GEO Foundation’s Kevin Teasley, using his words as gospel every chance they get.

A multimedia outfit, IIB has been in love with the Mind Trust and other corporate school reformers from the get-go and main TV star Gary Dick has interviewed and praised several corporate school reformers. He can be reached at http://www.insideindianabusiness.com/gi_contact_us.asp.

7. News-Sentinel (Fort Wayne)

This paper is NOT the Journal Gazette, which does outstanding work calling out the corporate school reformers.

These reporters often do legitimate stories on education in Indiana, but they fail in what is possible in investigative reporting, too often quoting only corrupt sources and focusing on the wrong questions. The national NPR takes money from the Gates Foundation, one of the biggest promoters of school privatization, so don’t expect to get an honest response from them either.

Reverend Ray Dix writes editorials for this paper. Dix has had Daniels’ crony and Black Alliance for Educational Options’ Jackie Cissell on his radio show highlighting charter schools. BAEO is a front group set up by the Walton family and several other rich white men whose goal is to drain the public schools through vouchers and set up charters to completely privatize public education. Dix often praises the corporate school reform movement in his pieces, which I have responded harshly to.

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